We are in
the moment of crisis in the global transformation. The neo-liberalism that
drove the disembedded phase of the transformation, known as `globalisation',
sought to create a global market society in which principles of commodification
were extended in every feasible sphere of life, including the educational
system, family life, occupational development and social policy. It reached its
moment of nemesis in the financial crash of 2007-2008, since when it has been
staggering, opening up some ugly political scenarios.

Globalisation
was a period of regressive redistribution, with income shifting in favour of
capital, and in which various forms of inequality were intensified, while
economic insecurity became pervasive. It created a risk society, in which risks
and uncertainty were transferred to citizens, while being vastly increased.
Crucially, a key tenet of the neo-liberalism was a perceived need to dismantle
all forms of collective body and, thereby, all forms of social solidarity.

The
subsequent crumbling of collective institutions of bargaining and
representation was no accident; it was explicitly desired by the economists and
others who were the spiritual guides and engineers of the globalisation era,
notably Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman and their colleagues in the Mont
Pelerin Society.

A
neo-liberal market system is not the same as the liberal market economy
envisaged by Adam Smith and others. It places primary emphasis on
competitiveness and individualism. Collective bodies are depicted as anti-trust,
inherently monopolistic and rent-seeking. But the drive to dismantle such
bodies in the globalisation era had a deeply ideological objective, weakening
the representation and bargaining capacities of vulnerable groups and groups
wanting to moderate market forces.

The context
of this paper is the aftermath of the three decades of globalisation, in which
politics has been shaped by the class fragmentation that has taken place, and
in particular by the emergence of a global precariat.

During the
globalisation era, a process of class fragmentation took place that has posed a
set of challenges for democratic governance. At the top, in terms of income,
alongside traditional representatives of capital, an elite of absurdly affluent
and powerful figures emerged as global citizens, able and eager to influence
governments wherever they could. For several decades, the elite, stretching
from the multi-billionaires in Silicon Valley to the oligarchs in Russia and
Ukraine, encompassing the hedge-fund managers, property tycoons and so on, have
dominated political discourse. No prospective prime minister or president in a
European country has risked offending them, and almost all politicians rush to
court them. This elite is effectively detached from any nation state and,
unless it favours their long-term interests, is detached from national or local
democracy.

In terms of
income, wealth and political influence, the group that is below the elite and
other representatives of financial and productive capital is the salariat,
those with above average incomes but also with a wide array of enterprise
benefits and long-term employment security. This group is shrinking and is
under fierce attack, affected by the financial crisis, austerity packages and
the extension of labour market flexibility into their ranks.

Below the
salariat in terms of income is the old manual working class, the dissolving
proletariat,… and below a new class has been emerging: the precariat. It is a
class-in-the-making. It is internally divided, just as the proletariat was
initially internally divided and in several respects remained so. Its internal
division is what makes it the new dangerous class, and which makes an
understanding of it so crucial to debates about democracy. Essentially, the
precariat consists of millions of people who have insecure jobs, insecure
housing and insecure social entitlements… They have no secure occupational
identity, and do not belong to any great occupational community with a
long-established social memory that could give them an anchor of ethical norms.
Being urged to be 'flexible' and 'employable', they are induced to act
opportunistically. Mostly they are denizens, not citizens, in that they have a
more limited range of effective rights than citizens.

The
precariat can be divided into three main `varieties'… The first variety are
those who are drifting from working-class backgrounds into a zone of
precariousness, the second, those emerging from the schooling system
over-credentialised for a flexi-job life on offer, and the third are the
denizens, migrants and others, such as the criminalised, who are in a status
that denies them the full rights of citizens…

Those who
believe in democracy must confront two ugly trends — the commodification of
politics (and politicians) and the thinning of democracy. The thinning of
democracy refers to a trend towards less active involvement in political
activity, notably in participation in political parties… And it is reflected in
the low percentage of young people bothering to vote, thereby shifting the
median voter to the elderly, which in turn induces many politicians to favour
them. Those politicians observe that it is mainly the elderly and the
middle-class that votes, and so they pander to their norms.

The
thinning of democracy also refers to the shrinking spheres of democratic
governance, including the transfer of many issues from political control to
control by experts or interests which happen to be favourable to powerful
groups in society.

In brief,
there are three directions in which factions in the precariat could turn. We
might characterise these as atavistic-populist, anarchic detachment and
idealistic-progressive (or utopian-progressive). Across Europe, each of these
is gaining ground.

The
atavistic-populist trend is displayed in the growing support for neo-fascist
parties and populist demagogues, in which elements of the elite have played on
fears among national precariat groups to depict govemment as alien and to see
`strangers' in their midst (migrants, the Roma, Muslims, etc) as the immediate
cause of their insecurity. The anarchic detachment mode is displayed in anomic,
anti¬social behaviour, in the fires of England's cities, in social illnesses
and a loss of faith in politics in general. The idealistic-progressive direction
is displayed in the Euro May-Day parades that have taken place in at least 25
European cities in recent years. Sadly, so far, the mainstream media,
international bodies, mainstream social scientists and political leaders have
not been listening to this third stream, or have given the impression that they
have not heard…

I would
like to suggest three policies, which must be developed from the perspective of
the precariat, all of which should… revive or enhance deliberative democracy…

At present,
many in the precariat are systematically denied entry to many occupations, and
are denied avenues for social mobility. For instance, qualifications gained
somewhere are not recognised for entry to a craft or profession in other
places. Overall, systems of state regulation of occupations have been quietly
blocking social mobility for those entering the lower rungs of occupations. We
need to establish Europe-wide social principies of regulation based on values
of social mobility, social solidarity and social equity with the voice of the
precariat involved in every aspect of the democratic governance of work…

The way to
arrest this drift to social engineering is to demand that the voice of those
most subject to the steering and most in need of assistance should be firmly inside
the agencies and institutions responsible for social policy. At the moment, we
are seeing the opposite, with the privatisation and commercialisation of social
policy. We need a movement for the democratisation of social policy…

People who
are chronically insecure make bad democrats. Psychologists have taught us that
people who are very insecure lose a sense of altruism and a sense of social
solidarity; they also become intolerant and thus prone to support
discriminatory and punitive measures against `strangers' or people who are
presentable as not-like-me.

The
proposal is that we should work towards giving everybody in European societies
basic income security, through provision of universal monthly grants for all
citizens. This is the only way of providing basic security in an open market
economy; social insurance cannot reach the precariat, and means-testing
assistance leads remorselessly to coercive workfare. What is needed is a
universal basic income as an economic right. Such a universal stabilisation
grant, with tax clawed back from the affluent, would pump money into the
economy in recessionary periods and withdraw it during economic booms.

While the
grants should be unconditional and universal, there should be a moral condition
attached to them, which is that, on signing on to become entitled to receive
the grant, each person should sign a moral commitment to vote in national and
local elections and to participate in at least one public local meeting each
year, at which all registered political parties could be represented and be
quizzed by the public.

The
justification for this… is that we are suffering from a growing deliberative
democracy deficit, and need to find the means of shifting time from labour,
consumption and play to political participation. Deliberative democracy in
which the precariat plays an integral part is essential if social cohesion in
Europe is to emerge. We are a long way from that. The inequalities and
divisions across Europe are destabilising as well as socially and economically
unjustifiable.

Unless the
cries from the precariat are heard and incorporated into a new politics of
paradise, the stirrings that have been heard and seen in the streets and
squares of Greece, Spain, England and elsewhere will only be the harbinger of
much more anger and upheaval. Extending deliberative democracy could be a means
of defusing the tensions that are building up.